On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 01:49 pm, Curt Sampson wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Aug 2003, Berndt Josef Wulf wrote:
> > Why not add only those dependencies that are required to buld and run the
> > package and leave optional dependencies to the user?
>
> Because judicious addition of things not required to build and run the
> package make life much easier. For example, I'd say that in general
> one should include multiple character set, multibyte character set and
> Unicode support in any package that has it, even if it's turned off in
> the default build. Then you don't have users going through the agony of
> wondering whether they can process a particular file on some particular
> machine without building private versions of a bunch of packages.
>
> cjs
This is only one side of the coin, because on the other hand it forces people
to download and install mega-packages such as ghostscript, TeX etc. pp.,
although they may never use the functionality of that package.
I'm sorry to disagree with you. I like to see packages to install only
REQUIRED dependencies and leave optional dependencies to the users.
This can be done via special configuration files, e.g. local.conf , that
contain a list of optional dependencies that a user has to enable before
commencing the building process. Now, how hard is this?
cheerio Berndt